On one hand you are providing resources for an entire living creature to grow to maturity in a semi-natural environment, while it spends energy exercising and feeding, and while generations of muscle cells and supporting cells live and die just to get the most desirable meaty parts when the animal is slaughtered.
On the other hand you just breed the useful cells directly, then pack them together in a way that's acceptable to the human palate.
Other factors aside, if you really think there's any competition regarding resource use, you're entitled to that opinion.
I still disagree. Completely. Cattle (and other food animals) are worth a lot more than jist their meat. Like all things, they are greater than the sum of their parts.
In the lab-grown scenario you'll have land that grows no vegetation what so ever. So no insects, no birds, no pollinators, etc. Just a slab of concrete on compacted land that will in some form produce waste.
Pastured meat has to be done with the aid of healthy soil. Weeds, flowers, insects, and polyculture grasses would grow on a vast amount of land. The cattle would graze in one area, then move to another after fresh growth. As they graze, they'll be fertilizing the soil with their dung. Not to mention from these cattle we'll get bone (for broths), leather, etc.
I read a heard a story about whales. A group of scientists thought that by killing the whales they would see more plankton/krill and thus more fish. But when they killed the whales, they noticed these things decreased. Why? Because the whales poop close to the surface. This poop cloud feeds the phytoplankton near the surface causing algae to bloom. When the algae grows, all the creatures that feed on it grow. These massive beasts were a boon to their environment, not a drain on resources.
Circle of life.
I'm a big fan of the circle of life, but these artificial products are not targeting natural pastured meat:
These products, say their backers, are intended to replace mass-produced animal products, not local organic ones. “From our perspective, health is not the point,” says Bruce Friedrich, at the Good Food Institute, which supports the alt-protein sector. “These products are for people who currently eat industrially produced meat.”
A cattle feed lot really isn't a part of the circle of life. For reference, they are basically
Just a slab of concrete on compacted land that will in some form produce waste.
Also, the standing of cattle pasture relative to actual natural environments can be pretty debatable.
Lab-grown food is going to target the most lucrative animal products, it can't seriously take on naturally produced beef, because people already buy that because it's natural. Taking the best profits out of the cheapest cattle production methods would be environmentally beneficial.
For me "messing with nature" examples there's introducing new species (become invasive) to biomes, pesticides, GMOs, monoculture, etc. Way too many examples to cite.
I don't agree on the environmental aspects either. There is no doubt a tremendous amount of energy will go into creating this meat (the muscles will probably be electrocuted to stimulate real meat texture). It would be more beneficial to pasture cattle like they are meant to rather than set up massive laboratories of artificial lighting, humidity, heat, etc. To create a more "eco-friendly" alternative.